Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge that Deputy Burton, as the former Tánaiste, was the joint sponsor of this consultation process. It is a good piece of work and I look forward to the report being available and debating it in the House. The construction and development industry, where these practices are prevalent, crashed during the recession and is emerging as a different industry, with contractors and developers only having a couple of key people and building by way of subcontractors with different skill sets. Quite a lot of the construction sector is becoming a manufacturing industry, where modular units are manufactured offsite and brought onsite to be put in place by subcontractors.

There has been a movement anyway towards increasing numbers of persons who are genuinely self-employed in the building industry. We must take that into account in our discussions. My objective is to root out tax evasion by persons falsely describing and constructing themselves as self-employed when they are actually employees.

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